Jason Days Creative Destruction

The innovator of the rubber guard was so impressed with Jason Day(Pictures)'s use of the technique against
Alan Belcher(Pictures) at UFC 83, he offered to send the
Canadian middleweight his instructional DVDs.

Day had been surprised to meet Bravo after the fight and surprised
again when the DVDs actually arrived. Of course he had ingeniously
applied the rubber guard to ensnare Belcher and rip a series of
vicious elbows off his back en route to victory.

Bravo's keen interest in Day arouses the suspicion that what the
fighter did that night may have been something special.

Perhaps it was a moment of "creative destruction" that leads to a
revolution in the dominant mode of fighting. Under the unified
rules system, ground-and-pound from the top position -- no matter
how lumbering -- invariably sways the judges despite furious action
from the bottom. Day's performance, however, may have laid out a
blueprint for scoring a 10-9 round off one's back.

Then again, as Susan Sontag observes, interpretation may be the
revenge of the intellect on art -- in this case, mixed martial
arts. For Day, the move, which he had picked up from an old friend
only a few weeks before the fight, wasn't a stylized technique but
rather something more fluid and spontaneous.

"When I got him in the rubber guard," explained Day, "his head was
right there; it had a big target on it. And I just wanted to elbow
the crap out of his head. … It wasn't even something I really
practiced or anything."

"Get up! Get up!" Belcher's corner screamed.

But Day was equally lethal on the feet. He used a dirty-boxing
clinch to land debilitating elbows to Belcher's temple and heavy
hands to finish him off.

In his UFC debut, Day had showcased an array of skills that he
seemed to ply with near-musical improvisation. In his match
Saturday at UFC 85 with England's Michael Bisping(Pictures), though, Day is looking to do one
thing: stand and bang.

"I'm going to go in and bang with him," said Day menacingly, the
rising emotions in his voice palpable. "He said he wants a guy to
stand with him, and I'll stand with him. If he gives me the
takedown, I'll take it. But I'm not going to go in there and try to
shoot or try to force the takedown when it's not there."

In what is a well-documented story, Day had actually called out
Bisping prior to the cancellation of the original bout between
Bisping and Chris Leben(Pictures). That's not to say,
however, that Day is disrespectful of his opponent. In fact, the
very reason he wanted to face Bisping was because he held the
Englishman in such high regard.

"I think he's a very tough fighter and I think he'll provide me
with a good war," Day complimented. "He's not going to roll over.
I'm going to have to fight twice as hard as I did against Belcher
and hit him twice as many times before he's going to give up."

Ken Seaman, Day's strength and conditioning coach, has been
subjecting his fighter to a tortuous plyometrics regimen.

"We'll take him through rounds going from treadmill sprints into
boxing for two minutes, back to the treadmill, then to the ground
for two minutes with a specific partner, and then back to the
treadmill, then back to wrestling," Seaman said. "And then he'll
rest."

The coach, who has been working with Day since his bout with
David Loiseau(Pictures), told Sherdog.com that fans can
expect to see faster hand movement and improved explosiveness from
his fighter.

"Hopefully his training will be the hardest thing he'll have to
face, eh?" said Seaman before bellowing a mischievous laugh.

Apart from conditioning, Seaman believes it will be Day's mental
toughness that will give him an additional edge in the fight.

"The biggest thing with Jay is now mentally knowing that he can go
all three rounds," Seaman said. "The pace that I push him after
those sprints and everything else, he never breaks. … For him to
know that he can go through the type of training we put him
through, I think that's going to be the biggest tool -- to have
that mentally. He'll know he'll never break."

Day also knows a win over a well-marketed fighter like Bisping
could catapult him in the rankings and garner attention from a
wider fan base, especially if he manages to stop Bisping, who has
never been put down.

"To finish a guy that's never been finished is huge, I think," Day
said. "If I go into London and finish him, that builds my name even
faster."

Despite having fought professionally for more than eight years now,
it is clear that Day remains hungry. He was first introduced to MMA
while working as a doorman at the "Road House," a fitting backdrop
that conjures up the seedy, smoked-filled setting of the 1980s
Patrick Swayze flick.

The head doorman, Lee Mein(Pictures) -- who also ran the budding
Canadian Martial Arts Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta -- suggested
Day give MMA a try after watching him carry himself well during the
bar scuffles.

Today the gym is fast becoming a hotbed for MMA in the Prairies,
breeding tough fighters like Day, Jared Kilkenny(Pictures), Dan Chambers(Pictures) and Jordan Mein. But Day's childhood
friends from his small hometown of Fort Macleod still have a hard
time imagining their soft-spoken friend as a prizefighter.

"I get messages from people I knew in high school," said Day with a
laugh, "and they're like ‘You're a fighter? I never would have
guessed!'"

Ask him about the scraps he got into when he was younger and he'll
have to dig all the way back to grade school.

"I think I was in grade four or five," he recalled. "I don't even
remember what the reason was. All I remember was getting whacked by
this kid and just crying and crying. That was as close as I got to
a fight. … I was never, ever the kid that got into fights. I never
started stuff."

Day's childhood reveals that it doesn't necessarily take a harsh
upbringing or a bellicose personality to become a fighter. If
anything, it is the blue-collar work ethic ingrained in him by his
father that has helped him excel in the sport. A self-professed
workaholic, Day will wake up at six in the morning, go to work, do
his strength and conditioning in the early afternoon, go back to
work and return for another session.

Those close to him say he is a bona fide celebrity in the small
city of Lethbridge. But Day remains unassuming, and often he can be
seen walking around with his hard hat on. With the rugged look of a
lumberjack, Day represents the Canadian everyman and takes pride in
being able to represent his country overseas.

"There's not another Canadian on that card," he said of UFC 85.
"When I was here in Canada, we had a bunch of Canadians fighting
and it was nuts having that many people cheer for you. Now you have
to go to England, and I'm the bad guy this time around. To be able
to go in there and be the only guy representing my country is a
pretty big deal."

While Day may be in hostile territory Saturday, Canadians will no
doubt be watching and supporting him in spirit. An American
jiu-jitsu artist named Bravo will probably be watching, too,
waiting perhaps on another instance of innovation.